A Night at Pemberley
by Ann Other
Summary: Elizabeth spends a night at Pemberely and finds secret documents which reveal the truth about Wickham's relationship to Darcy.


_Elizabeth and Mr and Mrs Gardiner are invited by Darcy to visit Pemberley. In 'Pride and Prejudice' this is a short visit, in my version, they are invited to stay for the night. After an evening similar to that described in Chapter 45 of 'Pride and Prejudice', Elizabeth retires for the night. The events of which, and the language in which they are described, draw heavily on another Jane Austen novel, 'Northanger Abbey'._

The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and rained violently. Elizabeth, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest with sensations of awe; but was enabled, on perceiving that Miss Darcy slept only two doors from her, to enter her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her spirits were immediately assisted by the cheerful blaze of a wood fire.

Sleep eluded her, however. Her mind was troubled with the conflicting impressions received in the past few days and hours; and above all, the reflection that she had been guilty of prejudice in her assessment of Darcy's character. Yet how was she to judge? Wickham was the most gentlemanly of men, and spoke with modesty and reserve about his mistreatment by Darcy, never exaggerating or wishing to apportion blame. But recently she had heard another account of the situation in Darcy's letter. She had almost decided to put the matter aside and wait for more evidence, when she remembered the favourable opinion expressed by Darcy's housekeeper; that must count for something.

Elizabeth might have drifted into sleep at this point had she not been disturbed by the sound of a shutter thudding in the wind. At first she thought it was one of the shutters in her own chamber, but rising from her bed, perceived that it was coming from the room next door. She remembered what the housekeeper had said; that room was old Mr Darcy's, and was empty. Well, there would be no harm in closing the shutter, so taking her candle, which was burning low, she ventured into the corridor.

She turned the handle, and found the room unlocked. She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed in motion. It could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt at once that it was unfastened. She pushed it to, turned the handle, and at once the curtains were still.

Elizabeth was beginning to think of going back to bed, when, on giving a parting glance round the room, she was struck by the appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet with a bookcase above and a writing desk below, and immediately a thought struck her. Might this cabinet not contain some of old Mr Darcy's papers; papers which might clear up the conflicting claims of both sides? Perhaps a written statement to the effect that Mr Wickham was promised the living he claimed to have been denied.

She hesitated. Who was she to pry into the affairs of the noble Darcy family? Might such an act even be illegal? Worse still, might the ghost of old Mr Darcy be watching her from the shadows? She shuddered at the thought, but like the cat in the adage, curiosity got the better of her.

She took her candle and looked closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan, black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key was in the door, and she decided, there could be no harm in looking into it. So, placing the candle with great caution on a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous hand and tried to turn it; but it resisted her utmost strength. She paused a moment in breathless wonder.

The wind roared down the chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation. To retire to bed, however, unsatisfied on such a point, would be vain, since sleep must be impossible with the consciousness of a possible solution to her dilemma in her immediate vicinity.

Again, therefore, she applied herself to the key, and after moving it in every possible way for some instants with the determined celerity of hope's last effort, the door suddenly yielded to her hand: her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only by bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in that her eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range of small drawers appeared in view, with some larger drawers above and below them; and in the centre, a small door, closed also with a lock and key, secured in all probability a cavity of importance.

Elizabeth's heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail her. With a cheek flushed by hope, and an eye straining with curiosity, her fingers grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth. There was nothing inside but some sheets of writing paper and a broken pen. In another drawer she found some pins and a brooch. She examined it carefully. The brooch contained a miniature of old Mr Darcy; at least she guessed it was old Mr Darcy, for this was the picture of a much younger man, containing however, sufficient likeness to the portrait she had seen to make it a likely conjecture. The miniature was surrounded by an ornate gold frame, and on the back was a pin. She was just about to put it down when she noticed something else about the back of the brooch. The frame had several small projections, about the thickness of a pinhead, and about an eighth of an inch long. There were six of these in an irregular pattern, and Elizabeth could only conclude that they had some function in fastening the brooch to a garment, though she had never seen their like before.

She continued her search with heightened curiosity. Well read in the art of concealing a treasure, the possibility of false linings to the drawers did not escape her, and she felt round each with anxious acuteness. One drawer caught her attention. It was noticeably larger on the outside than on the inside, but there seemed no way to penetrate the secret compartment. Then she noticed something unusual. A rose motif of yellow japan had been inlaid on the bottom of the drawer. This was most unusual, for who would ever see an inlay in this position. Examining it carefully, she noticed that the inlay was spoiled by woodworm – at least, there were six small holes it in. But if it was indeed the result of woodworm, why were there no holes elsewhere?

Then, in a fever of excitement, she realised the answer. Taking the brooch, she pressed the back against the rose inlay. The brooch was exactly the same size, and the six pins fitted the six holes. She pressed. There was a click, and the panel sprang open.

In the compartment, Elizabeth saw a sheaf of papers and a brooch which was an exact partner to the one she held in her hand. She picked it up and took it closer to the candle that she might see it more clearly. It showed the face of a beautiful young woman dressed in the fashion of an earlier age. Surely, those two brooches were pairs, and the people depicted in them were partnered in some fashion. But the lady did not look like Mrs Darcy's portrait in the gallery; though it was hard to tell in the light of the flickering candle. Impatiently, she reached to trim it, but it was trimmed and extinguished in one! It was done completely; not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling breath. In the pause which succeeded, a sound like receding footsteps and the closing of a distant door struck on her affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. She fled from the room and groping her way to her bed, she jumped hastily in, and crept far underneath the clothes.

To close her eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible. The miniatures so wonderfully found; and the papers. What could they contain? To whom could they relate? By what means could they have been so long concealed? And how singularly strange that it should fall to her lot to discover them! Till she had made herself mistress of their contents, however, she could have neither repose nor comfort; and with the sun's first rays she was determined to peruse them. But many were the tedious hours which must yet intervene. She shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and gradually slipped into a state in which her fevered imaginings were indistinguishable from dreams.

In this state she conjectured – or dreamed – that old Mr Darcy had once loved another woman than the Mrs Darcy in the portrait gallery. A woman he had met as a young man while travelling in France. She was beautiful, witty, but ineligible as regards circumstances. Worse than ineligible; she was an opera dancer in some low theatre of the demi monde. Darcy, young, foolish and impressionable, had married her and taken her away to a place in the French countryside to escape the censure of his friends. There she had borne him a son, but sadly, died in giving birth. Darcy, though only a year older, was now decades wiser, and returned with his son to England, determined to repair his life. He married again, and placed his son with his manager at Pemberley, planning to provide for him by giving him a good church living as soon as he came of age. All trace of the past was eradicated, and Wickham grew up thinking the manager was his father, and grateful for the surprising affection shown by old Mr Darcy. All trace, except for two miniatures and some papers: love letters, and a marriage certificate, which old Mr Darcy, always intended, but could never find the heart, to destroy; two miniatures and papers which proved that Mr Wickham, and not Mr Darcy, was the rightful heir of Pemberley!

The housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock the next day was the sound which first roused Elizabeth. Instantaneously, with the consciousness of existence, returned her recollection of the miniatures and papers, and springing from the bed in the very moment of the maid's going away, she crept into old Mr Darcy's room and opened the secret drawer. She snatched up the first of the papers, her greedy eye devouring the page. She started at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An invoice for the painting and framing of a miniature of Mr Darcy. She seized another sheet, and saw a similar invoice naming Miss Waverley as the woman in the minature; that was the name was the maiden name of old Mr Darcy's English – and only – wife, was it not? The other papers were various bills and invoices for day-today items; hair-powder, shoe-string, and breeches-ball. And the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first cramp line, "To poultice chestnut mare" -- a farrier's bill! Such was the collection of papers! How foolish she felt! And then, to cap it all, the sound of firm footsteps was heard coming along the corridor. What was she to do? She would be caught in the act of prying into old Mr Darcy's secrets. But it was too late. The door opened, and there stood Darcy, with a severe frown on his face.


End file.
